having to kick myself in the head at 6a.m to get off to the race was not exactly the easiest thing for me to do. We had to do the drive down to the race the morning of and we arrived a good 2 hrs before the start. Being the last race of the season I wanted to try and sneak another win in before I run a muck with the end of season break.

I surprised myself a bit and got into the move which stayed away and then split up going into the last 30k. I put in the odd attack put the other 5 riders under a bit of pressure but nothing stuck and it came down to a sprint and to my amazement I wasn't 6th out of 6 but 5th.

We started the second day with a time trial which was little, I pulled out a time good enough to take the leaders jersey by a few second. The afternoon stage got under way and the wind kicked up so the peloton was split and guy where getting shell, the team was strong and we 5 in the front, a few attacks threatened my lead but the team pulled it back and I managed to get a few more seconds over the other riders which was hot going into the last day.

The sun was out and the last 160k of the race was in front of us to complete, the wind was still blowing and some how I was in the front group with no team mates…..with 50k to go a group came across which had one of my team mates in it, the attacks where going and I was covering the dangerous move’s a group got away and gained a few minutes, in that group was a GC threat and for the last 40k myself and my team mate chased the group of 10 riders to only loses the leaders jersey by 22seconds. Even though other teams where losing out as well no other team want to help and chase, after fisting myself for 40k to only loses by a small margin it was a bit of a disappointing.

Just before the last stage. Team mate was leading the young rider and i was leading the tour